Wanderer
by DSL-Devin
Summary: Rose and her Doctor face the aftermath of her doing what she does best - wandering off. But will his reaction be the same this early in their relationship? Just some character exploration in a three-part story to help me get the feel of writing Dr. Who. Rated T for safety, probably only K.
1. Chapter 1

She woke up slowly, as if she was clawing her way out of a dark, deep place. The first thing she was aware of was that she was that she ached all over; from overworked muscles to a pounding in her head. If it hurt that much when she was half-asleep, she could only imagine what would happen when she opened her eyes.

Next, she became aware that she was in tucked into a bed. Probably her own, given how familiar it felt, but odd that she didn't remember getting there. Odd, actually, that she didn't remember much at all from the last few days. At least she was still on the TARDIS…those sounds were clear enough even through the haze.

Third, she was dressed pajamas. Which was odd, because she couldn't remember sleeping in a pair or pajamas since the day she'd fallen through the ice on a planet that had been supposed to be in the deep of winter – but they'd arrived several months off of the ideal time. At the end of that adventure, she'd woken up in the TARDIS's med bay in a pair of the Doctor's flannel pants and a t-shirt. Since she'd never seen him wear them, she'd never given them back.

Finally, as she tried to remember what had led to her lying in her bed in such strange circumstances, Rose realized that she wasn't alone in the room. She could hear the sound of deep, steady breathing from not so far away. Not so far away that, unless she's in someplace completely unfamiliar, would have to be the big armchair the TARDIS had provided in her room. It was a thoughtful gesture, but Rose has never used it for anything except perhaps to sling clothes over when she's in a rush. Now it's occupied; she finally gets up enough courage –both to face her aching head and to face whatever's waiting for her – and she opens her eyes. It takes a minute to bring the room into focus. The lights are dimmed and her vision swims in sync with the protestations from her body as she turns towards the familiar figure in the chair.

Her Doctor is sitting in the chair, which has been pulled away from the wall and closer to the bed. He's spinning the sonic screwdriver in his fingers in a way that she's come to know means he's thinking very intensely, but that stops when he realizes she's awake. His fingers – and the rest of his body – go very still. On his face is a look that she very rarely sees directed at herself; in fact, she isn't sure she's seen it since the day she ripped a hole in reality, admitting reapers intent on destroying all of humanity, and gotten the Doctor killed. The look makes her shiver, and she can't help but sinking deeper into the bed. "Doctor?" she is tentative in the asking; but she still isn't sure how she got here. His expression doesn't clear but he stands up and walks over, carefully taking her wrist and checking her pulse.

"How do you feel?" he asks, brushing a hand over her forehead when he releases her wrist. Despite the stormclouds on his face, he is very gentle with her while he does his examination.

"I hurt," she admits, wincing at the pain in her head as she tries to sit up, flustered by his demeanor. He has to help her sit up, in the end, or they both know she probably would have collapsed again. "My head…" Rose trails off as he flips the sonic around, scanning her and then quickly checking the readout. He turns away from her after that, grabbing something off of the bedside table. When he turns around, she can see that he has a glass of water in one hand and some sort of pill in the other. He offers them to her, but she doesn't take them right away, still at a loss for what she could have done to put that look on his face this time.

"What happened?" She has to form the words carefully around the pain, and they don't come out as confident as she wanted. If there is one thing she's been trying to convince him of since she accepted his offer to travel time and space in a big blue box, it's her strength. Today, she is clearly failing.

"Not now, Rose," the Doctor is clearly exasperated, at the end of his patience, and when he brandishes the pills again she slowly takes them, then the water. "You shouldn't be awake yet. You need more rest." She takes the medication, if only to lessen the glower on his face, and then slowly lowers herself back to the mattress. As quickly as she has done so, she starts to feel the weariness overtake her. Another long darkness, just as deep as the one she's just risen from. Again, she can't help but call out to him, as he seems to be turning towards the door.

"Doctor," Rose hates the weakness of her tone, but she feels better when he turns back anyway. Despite the scowl, despite whatever she may have done to earn it, he returns to the chair beside the bed, taking her hand without her even having to ask.

"It's just sleep, Rose, so that your body can finish healing. Don't fight it." His voice is all the reassurance she needs, and she starts to let the darkness claim her, comforted by his thumb rubbing gently on her hand. In the end, it takes mere heartbeats for her to drift away.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Sorry for the delay. That's what happens when you post the first chapter without actually decided the content of the second. Thanks so much for the reviews and follows! Glad to know I'm doing something right. :) This story has not been beta-read so don't hesitate to send along any grammar or typo corrections for me to make! Stay tuned for part three.**

Once she was asleep again, the Doctor slid Rose's arm back under the blankets and silently let himself out of the room, doing his best to ignore the uneasy feeling in his gut. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling, but it was certainly an unfamiliar feeling about a girl. A _human_ girl, especially. Before he plucked Rose off the streets of London, he had traveled alone for a very long time. Besides, he sternly lectured himself, he'd only been sitting there because she'd been unconscious since he'd found her. Now that she'd woken up and seemed for all intents and purposes fine, there was no reason for him to stay. He hesitated, leaning against the door, but then stubbornly pushed away and stalked into the control room. On the way he couldn't help but notice that the TARDIS had moved both Rose's room and the medical bay within feet of the control room.

"Traitor." He muttered at the TARDIS's controls, picking up a few new parts that he'd been meaning to install and sliding down underneath the console. Collapsing into the sling of wires and rope he'd hung underneath so that he could work, he stared up into the tangled mass of wires and electronics. The hum of the TARDIS around him was comforting, but he didn't start to tinker. His mind wasn't on it, and his heart wasn't in it. Staring into the mess above him, he let his mind wander. Unsurprisingly, his mind went straight back to their arrival on the last planet. In a way that was decidedly _uncomfortable _in its acquired normalcy, their landing on the fourth moon of the planet Ileyar had been unintentional. The Doctor had been intending to land them on the main planet, where the many moons of the planet were visible day and night and their moon festivals were spectacular. The twelve moons, however, though beautiful from afar were no place for sightseers; they were either home to the desperately poor or host for the planet's prisons. The best way for an Ileya to gain favor and thus move back down to the prosperous planetside life was to provide new fuel for the scientists researching how to improve the race. Most of the moon-bound Ileya who could afford to outfit a ship turned to piracy. For those that couldn't afford to become pirates, the crash landing of two new life forms on one of their moons was like winning the lottery for someone on Earth.

He hadn't suspected a thing at first. The fourth moon was close enough to the planet that its atmosphere and population were remarkably similar. The Doctor remembered the rough landing of the TARDIS, and he'd managed to piece together most of what had happened afterwards. Still, he was looking forward to Rose recovering so she could fill in the rest of the blanks. For instance, why she had wandered off and nearly gotten herself killed. Typical, stupid ape. Not enough sense for a life form that was supposedly going to survive the entire lifecycle of a sun, and beyond.

_"I'll just be a minute, try and see what we need to get us back in the air," he told Rose, peering at the console with a frown. "Go take a look outside if you want. Just don't go far." He grinned at her, waited for her to laugh that now-familiar laugh before he ducked under the control center. The Ileya as a people were rather harmless, and he couldn't wait to join her outside and explain the phenomena she would be seeing. Ileyar had twelve moons in the sky all the time, after all, but that wasn't the end of it. It was perpetually dusk here, and the interference of the atmospheres of the moons around their planet produced an effect similar to the Northern Lights of her Earth. But he was quite sure she'd never seen those in person, and the lights here were more impressive anyway. Chuckling to himself, he pushed aside some wires and cranked some screws. Presently, he identified his issue. It was the equivalent of a fuse. It should be found readily enough in one of the junkyards here, and if not he could reroute around it until they landed somewhere else. It didn't control anything vital to either himself or Rose. Snapping the part out of place so that he could match it later, the Doctor climbed back up to the main deck of the TARDIS and slipped it into his coat pocket with his sonic, more than ready to join Rose outside. They'd been much too busy saving the world lately, and he hadn't been able to take her someplace just to sightsee._

Honestly, he frowns at his own thoughts as he shifts in his sling trying to get more comfortable, he should have known better. When has his complicated ship ever let him get away with life as a spectator? Instead of scaling back on dumping him in strange places when he brought Rose onboard, the TARDIS had definitely increased that sort of thing. As if he wasn't just as, if not more, able to tackle intergalactic problems without a human companion on board. Again, he finds himself annoyed as much with his ship as with her. Even with a regulator out (a part, he notes now, he never acquired on Moon Four), the TARDIS should have been able to get them safely landed on the main planet. But no. Of course not.

_The minute the Doctor stepped out of the door, he knew something was amiss. It was much too bright to be Ileyar, and the sight on the horizon was all wrong. Impressive, yes, but wrong. The alignment of the moons wasn't right and the lights were barely visible through the brightness. The right system, then, but not the planet. Quickly, he calculated the angles and sizes of the bodies in the sky and arrived at the conclusion that they'd landed on Moon Four. Not a place he wanted to be, so they'd just get back in the TARDIS while he did the necessary rewiring, and then a quick hop down to…where was Rose? Letting the door click shut behind him, the Doctor did a quick survey to make sure she wasn't just around the other side of the blue box, before concluding that she was nowhere to be seen. "Rose," he called her name, sticking his hands in his pockets. The terrain wasn't flat, so perhaps she'd just disappeared over one ridge. There was no response, so he called again, irritated. "ROSE!" Ok, so it was more of a bellow, but this regeneration tended towards impatience and he'd _told_ her to stay close._

_Perhaps their definition of "close" was not the same. There's no obvious path or trail to follow leading away from the TARDIS but the knee-high grass does seem to be possibly trampled in one direction, so he sets off that way. The ground slopes downward, and before too long he can see the tops of tents or buildings of some sort – probably a market, or civilization, or whatever the Moon Four Ileya can claim – and that seems a likely place to find Rose. She's always picking up little trinkets from the planets they visit. For her mother, as often as not, though sometimes she talks about Ricky (Nicky?) or some friends whose names he hasn't bothered to commit to memory. They don't seem the type of people she'll ever introduce him to, anyway. It doesn't take him long to reach the bazaar, but it also doesn't seem occupied. There is that odd flutter of movement and whisper of sound, though, that always indicates more than meets the eye. He's starting to feel nervous, and he doesn't call her name again._

_If she's here, he doesn't want to draw attention to her. Better that he find her quickly and they leave._

Again with the wishful thinking, he remembers bitterly. Kind of like thinking he's going to work on the TARDIS while Rose is still out of commission. Dropping the parts on the ground in irritation, he tries not to fantasize about how worry-free life was before he took on a new companion. How worry-free it was, even, before he started to care about this one. And where did that come from? He thought he'd cured himself of the tendency to care too much when he regenerated. After all, plenty of the beings he'd encountered since then had had no problem labeling him an insufferable cretin and he'd had no problem with that. They didn't expect much from him that way.

_In the typical way of trouble, it wasn't long before he found it. One of the Ileya stepped out from a narrow alley to block his path. It was disconcerting, at first, how much they looked human. You could easily overlook the slightly grayish hue of the skin as just another race of person, and you didn't notice the extra finger on each hand and extra toe on each foot (at least not at first). But then it smiled at him, a predatory smile, and the Doctor remembered just how inhuman they were when faced with a hostile expression and two sets of very sharp, very pointy teeth. Carnivore teeth, not omnivore teeth. Not, of course, that they'd waste such excellent trade currency for a meal. There were plenty of native non-sentient animals for that. Or, they'd been known to eat each other. Sliding his hand into his pocket and firmly grasping the sonic screwdriver, he smiled in response. "Hello. Beautiful day, isn't it? I'm just passing through, no trouble here."_

_Then had come the others, and the net, and he liked to think he'd allowed himself to be captured, hoping they'd take him wherever they'd taken Rose. No use wandering an entire barren moon looking for the girl if they would take him to her. The Ileya had retired to a campsite not far away, where from what he could understand they were plotting to steal Rose from another band of natives. There would be more chance of substantial reward if they could present both the male and female to the on-planet scientists. They hadn't figured out yet that the Doctor and Rose were two separate species. With their primitive available technology, there was little chance they would. It had escalated quickly from a sneaky mission to slip in and take Rose away to an all-out attack, and a decision had not been reached when darkness fell and the Ileya went to sleep. Even the Doctor dozed off, not particularly worried about his safety – or Rose's. They were too valuable to be harmed in any significant way._

_When the firefight started just before dawn, he figured the other camp had gone through about the same discussion, simply arriving at a plan a little sooner. The rush to arms left him unguarded, and he quickly set about freeing himself from the netting. Thankfully it was metal-woven net (the sonic didn't do much better on hemp and rope than it did on wood) and they hadn't been smart enough (or brave enough, he would prefer to think) to search the Doctor for weapons. It didn't take him long at all to throw off the net and stand fully upright, though he quickly ducked behind the nearest structure both to avoid notice and to avoid the laser beams shooting back and forth now across the camp. From what he could ascertain by sight and sound, his captors were the better outfitted, with better technology and perhaps better leaders, but the rival group was more tenacious…perhaps more desperate._

_At this point, he could only hope they would effectively kill off each other and leave the path to escape free. He could follow the survivors to wherever Rose was. It was merely by lucky chance that as he ducked around another tent, trying to stay out of sight, he saw the three figures up on a hill overlooking the encampment. For a long moment he refused to believe they would be so stupid as to drag a captive along on a raid if they had the manpower to guard them in a more secure location, but Rose's identity was unmistakable. Against their grayish skin and dark hair, her pink skin and blond hair was easy to distinguish, even at such a distance. This was luck indeed – he could take two of them, if he could get there fast enough, and then they could do what they did best, and run._

_The Doctor knew he'd been spotted when there was a nearly silent moment in the encampment below, but a glance backwards revealed that they would be greatly inhibited by still fighting each other, so he kept running, sonic screwdriver in hand as he crested the hill and came face-to-face with two very nervous Ileya and his Rose. As a weapon the screwdriver was rather shoddy, though of course he would never admit that to anyone else, but thankfully generations and generations of poor planning and a lot of inbreeding had left the Ileya with certain weaknesses, and a certain setting on his handheld device – yes, that one, he thought as he fumbled with the controls – would render them unconscious rather quickly. Having taken care of that threat he reached down to help Rose to her feet, feeling a surge of annoyance at the fact that she wasn't ready to run yet._

It was only then that he'd seen her injuries, and the Doctor still felt guilty about his uncharitable thoughts when she was slow to rise. It had been clear that she had not gone into their custody as willingly as he, and probably she had been a most uncooperative captive. Some day in the distant future perhaps he would admire her tenacity, but at that moment his thoughts had been very different. Anger at her for getting caught in the first place, fury at the Ileya for her condition, and good dose of panic when she was slow to look up at him and even slower in her attempt to stand. Safe in the TARDIS, he let those feelings wash over him again, analyzing them. It was only his intense need to get Rose back to the ship that had kept him from destroying every one of them, and he wondered both when he'd gotten so violent and when the well-being of a single human had come to mean so much to him again.

_"Rose!" he didn't have time to really examine her, but he found himself trying to be gentle as he pulled her to her feet. She wavered on her feet but when he released her, she stayed standing. Her hands were bound, but her feet were not. Still, he was well aware that she needed all of the help she could get to run fast, especially in this condition, and free arms would help. He struggled to untie the knotted ropes, aware that every second was bringing them closer to recapture. As he gave up, debating whether to pull her along or try to pick her up, her head jerked up unexpectedly and those brown eyes that had been so unresponsive a moment ago widened. The Doctor couldn't turn around fast enough to face the threat, but somehow she pushed away from him, putting herself between the raised Ileyar gun and the Doctor – and then fell, crumpled at his feet._

He didn't really remember getting them back to the TARDIS. Even for a Time Lord, that encounter had been very hectic and very emotional. Over time he would probably pick through the memories and they would resolve into clearer pictures, but right now he simply knew that he'd picked Rose up, held off the Ileya for several moments, and in one of her not-so-rare displays of independence the TARDIS had materialized to pick them up. He'd gone straight to the medical bay with Rose and let the ship hold off the hostile natives. Even now, his anger paled in comparison to the relief that Rose had stepped into the path of a stun weapon, not a lethal weapon. Of course, at that range and set on that power (meant for his much larger size and higher energy), and on top of her other injuries, it could have been lethal if he hadn't been able to get her into the TARDIS so quickly and start the healing process. Even if he was trying to deny it, he was well aware that part of his lingering anger is an attempt to avoid facing the emotions he'd felt when he thought he'd lost Rose. Those feelings were almost alien (oh, the irony of that) to this reincarnation of him, and he wasn't sure how he felt about them resurfacing. The Doctor didn't want to care. Caring led to complications, and complications led to people getting hurt – himself included. To be perfectly honest, he had been quite sure the Time War had cured him of the affliction commonly known as caring.

The reminder that it hadn't, as he sat stiff and silent beneath the console, was harsh and unwelcome.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you again to all who have reviewed, fav'd, or followed this story! It's very encouraging. **

**For posterity, I'd like to note that this story must have occurred after "Father's Day" but before they picked up Jack in "The Empty Child".**

**Also, I apparently lied, and this is going to be at least four chapters. Rose demanded her own emotional interlude before the conclusion. But never fear, we will make it to the end at some point!**

When she woke up again, she was relieved that it simply felt like waking up, not the struggle out of the darkness that she remembered. Before she opened her eyes, she knew she was alone in her room. Still, she lay still for several moments, trying to remember. She can remember waking up to the Doctor's presence and very clear disapproval, but she still can't fathom what she did this time. Oh, there's always those little things that irritate him, lines that you cross before you ever realize you've reached them, but those are just ripples. He's a difficult man to get to know, and they've both gotten good at recovering from those unavoidable awkward moments. This was something different. Something big must have happened to make him act like that, and as she's already learned, it's nearly impossible to navigate _those_ murky waters even when you have a complete grasp of what is happening.

Rose knows he'd been planning to take her to see some new planet, some place with phenomena that he promised was even better than Earth's northern lights. But what happened there? Did they even get there? With a groan, she resigns herself to the fact that she's not going to remember just lying there. Slowly she sits up, relieved that whatever medicine the Doctor had so grumpily given her must be working, because while she still aches all over, the pain is no longer debilitating. Taking things slow in case she has a regression into her earlier weakness, she stands and reaches for a sweatshirt, knowing that the control room will be significantly cooler than her bedroom, but freezes mid-motion. A large bruise spreads across her arm, fading but clearly nasty. Where did that come from, and why can't she remember? Becoming less comfortable with her cluelessness by the minute, she visually inspects her body, not altogether surprised to find that her arm isn't her only not-quite-healed injury.

She doesn't allow herself to sink onto the bed, though she seriously considers trying to lapse back into the deep, dreamless sleep she's just woken from. No, that won't do. She needs an explanation for what happened, and she needs it before she completely loses her cool. Instead, she pulls the sweatshirt over her head. The last thing she needs is the Doctor seeing the bruises. It's bad enough he must know they are there, but they don't need to be glaringly obvious, because it'll just make him more reticent. That is one thing Rose had figured out quickly – the very best way to lose an argument with the Doctor was to remind him of her humanity. It seemed to be a sore spot and a cause for celebration, all at once, and he tended to get distracted by it.

Steeling herself for a confrontation of epic proportions, remembering the one in her father's alternate reality, she finally slips out of her room and walks towards the center hub of the TARDIS. The lights are dim, but they brighten as she walks, a spot of relative brightness following her down the hall until she reaches the control room, hesitantly pausing in the doorway. The Doctor is underneath, doing something that repeatedly produces a popping noise and bright green sparks. She can hear him muttering to himself, but can't decipher what he's saying. The tone is clear enough, though, and she guesses he hasn't relaxed any since he was sitting beside her bed. Clearly, time isn't going to help, so she doesn't retreat. Though of course…with the door behind her, it's always an option.

"Doctor?" Rose walks forward to the railing, but doesn't start down the ramp. She startles him into dropping something that clanks loudly and rolls away, causing him to swear under his breath, but he stops what he's doing and emerges from underneath the console, rolling his shoulders as he stands from his coiled position, looking over at her only after he's leaning against the center of the TARDIS, arms crossed over his chest.

"You're awake," he observes it in a quiet voice that Rose can't interpret. "Is the headache gone?"

With all of the questions burning in her head, she honestly can't understand why that one, and for a moment she considers telling him so. But then she remembers how badly her head hurt when she woke before, and realizes that particular ache is completely gone. Despite the lingering damage to the rest of her body, her head is completely fine. A frown forms on her face while she puzzles through this, but she can honestly respond with a simple, "Yes." Once she does, silence descends for what feels like several minutes. Rose doesn't want to look right at him, knowing that his face is still arranged in that look of stony disapproval, but she can feel his gaze on her.

Rose wonders, for the first time, if he really might actually send her home. She can't bear the thought of leaving this – of leaving this wonderful everything – to go back to a useless life as a worthless shopgirl in a time where humans didn't even believe in extraterrestrial life, not really. Stuck in a humdrum everyday life for the next 60 or 70 years until she dies. And she can't bear the thought of her Doctor being alone (when, she wonders, did she start thinking of him as "her" Doctor?). He's admitted to her that he's the last of his kind, and she's seen a brief window into his life. He may not be human, but she can't believe that he was ever meant to be alone any more than any other living being. Somehow, she thinks he would be a very dangerous man on his own, to himself and others. She wants to beg his forgiveness, but she has no idea what to apologize for.

"I don't understand why you're so mad at me," she finally says, her voice soft, intending to go on, even daring to look up at him. "I can't-" he pushes away from the console, his entire body going rigid and fury suddenly on his face, and she goes silent.

"You don't understand why I'm mad?" His voice starts out soft, that same emotionless tone that he'd asked her if her headache was gone, but quickly escalates to shouting. "The one bloody thing I keep asking you not to do – don't wander off. You can't even follow one, single, simple instruction! You wander off and nearly get yourself killed doing something stupid – again – but you can't understand why I'm mad. I let you out of my sight for a few seconds, said don't go far, and I come out of here and you're gone. Gone, Rose! And then we both get captured by bloody shark people, and you _don't understand why I'm mad_?"

"That's not what I meant," she protests into the momentary silence, shocked nearly to tears by his outburst. He doesn't usually raise his voice, not even when she has incurred his mercurial wrath before, and she wonders if maybe she's in over her head. Maybe she should leave, if she's such a bother to him. "I meant, I don't understand because I can't remember anything! All I remember is waking up on the TARDIS." Rose is rewarded when his icy glare turns to shock, but slowly, the fright and shock are turning into frustration and anger at him, and she blinks back tears that she's not sure are from the anger or something she doesn't want to identify. "And I'm all over cuts and bruises, and I have no idea why, and all you can do is glower and yell!" She turns are runs back into the hallway, ignoring him calling her name behind her, and runs until all of her tangled emotions catch up to her and she has to stop, bracing against the wall as the tears finally come.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N Here you go. The last chapter. Sorry for the wait, I kept tweaking bits of this and I'm still not quite satisfied but it'll have to do. A very big thanks to Lillian, the-laughingstock, Nanana, flexingrhetoric, ladydeath07, rosenine, Taylor, Freiheit483, and my unnamed guest for the reviews. :)**

When she runs out of the room, he can't move. He's frozen in place by her words and her expression, slowly working through them in his head. As he does, the anger turns to guilt and regret, the dark emotions coiling in his gut, uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Though he wants to deny it, it is becoming very clear that he's been on his own for far too long. When did callous disregard for the feelings of others become so commonplace in his life? So she made one little mistake, was it really the end of the bloody universe? It wasn't like his traveling companions hadn't wandered off before. It was one of the most amazing things about the human race – their never-ending curiosity. Their need to seek the whys and wheres and hows of the world. It was why he loved them so much, why he kept saving them from destruction and whisking certain special individuals away to experience all of the wonders of the universe with him.

It was this curiosity combined with unwavering determination and bravery in the face of the unknown that had drawn him to bring Rose Tyler onboard the TARDIS in the first place. He'd encouraged that very behavior, praised it and supported it, and then when it happened to go a little awry he blamed it all on her. When he first met her (and more than once since then), he'd taken her hand and asked her to run with him. And now, somewhere on his ship, she was running from him.

Rose had almost given her life for him – that could have so easily been a gun and not a stunner – and he couldn't even forgive and forget one little mistake.

Somehow, at some point, he'd turned into some sort of monster.

He turned to lean on the console, to take comfort from the familiar hum of his TARDIS, but she was suspiciously quiet. From day one he'd been aware that the heart of the TARDIS had taken a special liking to Rose, but he couldn't remember when his time machine had ever sided with a companion over him. It only intensified the confusing feelings, and he leaned against the physical support for a moment anyway, closing his eyes. For a moment he uncharitably thinks that perhaps he should have left her behind; life would certainly be simpler.

But that is not the answer. The Doctor knows that. Rose brings a light to life on the TARDIS that is unpredictable to him. Her mercy and curiosity and compassion make him better. As much as it goes against his will to think it, to admit it even to himself, he needs Rose Tyler in his life. To remind him that not all things in the world are as terrible and dark as the Time War, and that violence should not ever be anything except a last resort. With this revelation bright and new in his mine, he can suddenly feel the hum of the TARDIS beneath his hands again, as well as the slippery sensations of both a slight shift in time and the rearrangement of space in the time machine. Without asking, he knows that the TARDIS has made his long inward debate mere seconds long, and when the sound of soft sobbing reaches him he realizes she has also moved Rose to where he can easily find her.

In a very brief moment of levity he wonders if the key to a simpler life would be to ditch the sentient spaceship, not the human companion. He doesn't know which presents more tangles in his life.

Mind made up, he darts up the ramp and around, running down the hallway to where he can see Rose. She's slumped to the ground, knees drawn up to her chest and face buried in her arms, shoulders shaking with the force of her emotion. It's clear she tries to stifle the tears when she hears him, but the sight of it has already left a gaping hole in his chest where both of his hearts used to be. "Hey, now," he crouches in front of her, lifting a hand to touch her arm but awkwardly dropping it before it quite reaches. "Don't cry, Rose, please don't," the next words catch in his throat, words he hasn't said to anyone in a capacity like this in an awfully long time, but when she doesn't look up at him he forces them out, hoping that she'll believe him despite the strained tone they end up having. "I'm sorry."

Very slowly, not wanting to crowd her to startle her, he turns and lowers himself to sit on the floor right next to her. Thankfully, the sobbing seems to have stopped, but still she doesn't look at him. Silently, he gazes down at her, at a complete loss for words. After what feels like an eternity, Rose reaches for his hand, sitting up straighter but turning her head the other way, trying to hide her actions as she swipes at her face with a sleeve. He takes her hand, holding tightly to it as if it's a lifeline, and looks away, respecting her clear desire for him not to see her tears. When he looks back down at her, she's staring at her own hand in her lap, and he counts her heartbeats as the silence stretches, a sound that at one point in the last day or so, he thought he'd never hear again.

"Why can't I remember?" Rose finally breaks the silence, and looks up at him, those big brown eyes so very troubled. He doesn't give her lies or platitudes – he's already done enough damage for one day.

"I don't know." A quick intake of breath and the tightening of her hand in his are the only signs of her distress at that statement. "Most likely it's just a stress reaction. Your mind is trying to protect itself." Even as the words leave his mouth, he desperately wants them not to be true. Rose has faced alien invasions with barely a qualm, shown compassion to a Dalek of all things; if this is what her mind has finally decided is enough, he can't even fathom what she might have seen or experienced at the hands of the Ileya. More likely – or what he hopes for, at this point he's not sure he could determine which it is – there is another explanation. "Or you might have hit your head when you fell, or maybe it's a delayed reaction to the stunner."

Again, silence, as she processes his statement. In that way she is so different from him – he's always had the tendency to jabber on or lecture or simply talk while he's working through things, but Rose has always been quieter, usually because she's formulating more specific or helpful questions. She doesn't disappoint him this time, either. While some lesser beings might have proceeded to flip out about why she would be that stressed or panic about the mention of having been the subject of a stun weapon, she simply gets to the heart of the issue.

"Doctor….what did I do?" The fact that she says 'What did I do' and not 'What happened to me' tells him she's still dwelling on his angry accusations. Bugger it, he's still dwelling on his accusations. The fact is, if she doesn't remember, he doesn't know whether she wandered off or not. They could have been waiting right outside the TARDIS to take Rose. If no one else emerged, if they knocked her out, they may have assumed she was the only passenger.

"You were gone when I came out," he finally settles on that, his words measured and careful. "I thought you'd gone on your own, so I followed, but you were gone. Turns out, we were both captured. We didn't land on the planet, but one of its moons. They wanted to sell us to the planet for their scientists." The Doctor stops there, remembering the panic when he found Rose. But she is still looking up at him, waiting for him to finish. "When I found you, you were already in a pretty bad condition. You're more valuable in good health, so you must have been fighting them pretty good." His tone is a bewildered mixture of censure and admiration, as he still doesn't know if he wants to strangle her or kiss her for being so determined to escape on her own. "I was trying to untie you so we could run when they caught up to us. I didn't see them. They were armed. And you…_you_ stepped in front of the gun aimed at me." He frowns again, the sight of her collapsing at his feet fresh enough that the jagged edges of emotion are hard to stand. And – bloody hell – kiss her? Where did that come from? Why these feelings, why now? She was a human, for the love of time. He knew all too well how that ended.

"Is that why you're so upset?" There is understanding in her eyes now. He almost has to look away; with the understanding usually comes the pity. But not with Rose. Compassion, yes, but not pity. Instead he watches in wonder as she gives him a tiny little smile, just barely tinged with regret and squeezes his hand even tighter. "I'm sorry if I wandered off and got kidnapped by aliens. But I'm not sorry that I tried to save your life. All the good you do – you're worth a thousand of a mere human like me."

"Don't say that," he whispers, all of the terrible things he's done – starting with the past few hours and extending back 900 years – at the forefront of his mind. He thinks of the wonderful things she has already done with her short 19 years, and knows that he would never forgive himself if she gave her life for his. That's not how it' supposed to work. What sort of man is he if he can't even keep one pink and yellow human safe in his time machine? One life to protect. Surely, as clever as he is, he can manage that. "I'm less fragile than you are. Nine hundred years old, remember? I think I can worry about me by now." He tries the humor, hoping to lighten her mood, though he won't blame her if she's not ready to forgive him yet. Even to him, it falls a little flat. But she smiles at him again, and he smiles back. It's as if he can't help it, as if her smile is infectious.

"So…we're ok?" She tilts her head when she asks him, her smile fading.

"Yeah. We're ok."


End file.
